INSPIRING AND UPLIFTING HEALTH AND WELLBEING ARCHITECTURE

Ian Cooney, Project Director at Holmes Miller, specialising in sport and leisure/ health and wellbeing architecture and design, talks to PSBJ about the firm’s latest project, Allander Leisure Centre in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, which also uniquely integrates a local resource centre.

When two much-loved community facilities had outgrown their inefficient buildings, East Dunbartonshire Council knew it wanted whatever replaced them to be at the heart of the community and play a key role in improving the lives of local people.

The Allander Leisure Centre had been a recreational hub for the community of the East Dunbartonshire suburb of Bearsden for over 40 years, hosting countless swimming galas, football birthday parties, nightly squash challenges, coffee mornings and fetes.

For a similarly long time, Kelvinbank Resource Centre in Kirkintilloch had been a home from home for adults with learning challenges, dementia, autism and physical disabilities – providing day care and vital support to users and their families.

When we were asked by the council to bring these facilities together to form one community hub – the new £42.5m Allander Leisure Centre – with inclusivity at its heart, we saw this as a chance to break down barriers.

We felt that through thoughtful design, this new centre could unlock a host of new opportunities for Kelvinbank’s users, placing them at the heart of the community and making a real difference to their lives. The added benefits, of course, would be a reduction in carbon footprint and operational costs.

Together with the council, we held sessions to listen to and understand the aspirations of the users of both facilities. Their views helped shape a brief for the Allander Leisure Centre project that reflected the community’s needs and aims – something that is becoming increasingly common in the design of new sport and leisure facilities.

The project team that worked on the Allander Leisure Centre have more than 30 years of combined experience in sport and leisure architecture, and followed an agile design model that was guided by five principles: flexibility, vitality, community, efficiency and quality.

Key to our design was the synergy of community leisure and care, within a vibrant and uplifting environment. We wanted to create a distinctive civic building with a timeless aesthetic that was welcoming, open, generous and of a high-quality architectural specification.

The new centre offers the community significantly enhanced sport and leisure facilities including an eight-lane swimming pool, training pool, sauna and steam room, hydrotherapy pool, gym, eight-court games hall, squash courts, spin room and improved football and tennis facilities.

To reflect changing trends in sport and recreation, throughout the building we designed in multi-purpose spaces that will give the operator flexibility to meet changing levels of demand throughout the year, while catering for the school curriculum and local sports club requirements.

Our solution to what was a complex tandem build involved arranging each core component of the building programme as a layered mass, sequentially stepping up to temper the scale of the building. This cascading form uses a clean and simple palette of materials that reflects the tones of blonde sandstone commonly used in Bearsden and Milngavie. Highquality brick steps down over a welcoming pleated glass and bronze main elevation.

The focal point of the building’s interior is a naturally-lit, timber-clad, triple-height entrance atrium that serves as a flexible events space for the community, and also houses a cafe.

The building is topped by a translucent light box that wraps around the games hall to illuminate the space and provide a visual marker.

Alongside the main building will sit an indoor sports dome, anchored by a solid base and topped by a playful and geometric roof form – as the final phase element.

The facilities at the new resource centre follow health and social care best practice, with an internal layout that reflects a curated programme. The centre offers dementia, physiotherapy, rebound and sensory treatment rooms, along with arts and crafts, dance and music rooms, and meeting spaces.

The interior design scheme uses colour signifier and tactile surfaces, and the creation of sensory and production garden areas ensures users benefit from a holistic experience that caters to their needs. Housed within a training kitchen, a food production social enterprise gives the centre’s users a chance to get involved with the wider community.

We know that in this time of austerity, the design of health and wellbeing facilities needs to continue to adapt and evolve to ensure local authorities can provide good value for their communities. By collaborating closely with East Dunbartonshire Council, at the new Allander Leisure Centre we have delivered flexible facilities that will give local people an exceptional quality of experience, both now and in the future.

The overall result is a warm, welcoming building that breaks down barriers, improves lives and creates synergies between sport, culture and mental health.